OKLAHOMA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 72, 



The largest quarries with which I am personally familiar in 

 the Flint Hills are near the town of Hardy in eastern Kay County, 

 Oklahoma. They are located on some rather high hills overlook- 

 ing the valley of Beaver Creek. These places have long been 

 known locally as the "Timbered Hills" from the mounds of broken 

 rock and debris, which form great piles along the foot of the hills. 

 One hears of course, the old tales of buried treasure, of Spanish 

 Mines, and of Indian burial grounds, which tales are ominpresent 

 throughout the southwest. Anyone who cares to investigate, how- 

 ever, will soon be convinced that the "Timbered Hills' are simply 

 the remains of the quarries from which the Indians obtained ma- 

 terial for weapons and instruments. 



Still farther north in Cowley County, Kansas, there are a 

 great number of pits and quarries with numerous rejects scattered 

 on the surface. Near Maple City, Kansas, four miles from the 

 Oklahoma State line, I have collected hundreds of specimens of 

 fiint rejects. Other quarries with which I am familiar are located 

 near Dexter, Grand Summit, Beaumont, and Sallyards, Kansas, and 

 they have been reported as far north as Blue Rapids, not far from 

 the Nebraska line. 



A third region on the Plains in which flint is quite abundant 

 is in the Pennsylvanian region of northern Texas. The same type 

 of limestone and flint concretions occur here is in the Flint Hills 

 region in northern Oklahoma and southern Kansas. Great num- 

 bers of concretions are found here, but they are not as large as 

 those in Kansas. There appears to have been a period of post- 

 Pennsylvanian erosion, which has swept away the flint flak .^5 and 

 fragments so abundant in the Flint Hills of Oklahoma and Kansas. 

 In some dozen or more countries in north-central Texas, ^including 

 Jack, Young, Stephens, Palo Pinto, Eastland, Callaham, Brown, 

 Coleman and Runnels where the flint occurs in quantities, it is 

 usually found in the form of rounded concretions varying in size up 

 to six inches in diameter, which covers many of the higher escarp- 

 ments as well as the slopes below. In many cases, these concretions 

 have been broken open and fractured, sometimes by natural agencies, 

 but perhaps more often by the hand of man, and the chips and 

 fragments, in many cases, have been worked into implements. It 

 is no uncommon thing to find in this region an ancientt workshop 

 where Indians having collected large quantitties of boulders, have 

 worked them into implements. Large amounts of fragments and 

 many rejects in all stages of completion may be found near these 

 workshops. 



